Although Ms. Patel was not present for the great majority of these incidents, Plaintiff contends that she complained several times to Ms. Patel and Mr. Patel about Santos's conduct, but they refused to take any action. Consequently, in March 1994 Plaintiff went to Xytel's president, Bob Lo, to complain about the harassment. Lo held a joint meeting with Curde, Santos, and their supervisors, at which time Lo decided to move Curde and her group to a new location in the building so that Santos and Curde would be seated apart from each other and another supervisor would always be present. However, Curde claims that in this new arrangement she would still be required to sit adjacent to Santos, and that the new supervisor would not be present for much of the day since his duties frequently required him to be out of the office area. In addition, Curde claims that Lo said if she couldn't work together with Santos, she could resign. Curde reported to her new assignment for only a short period of time
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before concluding that she could not endure the conditions any longer. She left Xytel and filed this lawsuit, claiming that she was exposed to a hostile work environment, and constructively discharged because of her complaints of sexual harassment, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).

Defendant now moves for summary judgment on both counts, arguing (1) that Curde has failed to demonstrate that she was exposed to a hostile work environment, (2) that Xytel's prompt corrective action bars her claim against the company, and (3) that Curde's employment conditions were not so intolerable as to consider her constructively discharged.

In paragraph 17, Plaintiff asserts that when she would "go out to lunch with male co-workers Santos would repeatedly ask when they had gone and sarcastically reply that Plaintiff had gone out to have sex, not eat lunch." Defendant correctly points out that neither Plaintiff's affidavit nor her deposition testimony supports the contention that Santos verbally accused her of a mid-day tryst; rather, both sources indicate that Santos implied that Curde was having sexual relations with other men. Curde Affidavit P 5; Trans. at 150-52.
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In response to the motion to strike, however, Plaintiff concedes this point and effectively amends her 12(N) statement to comport with her testimony. Thus, because Plaintiff has adequately clarified paragraph 17, we see no conflict between this statement and her prior testimony and therefore decline to strike the statement from our consideration.

Defendant next challenges paragraph 18, which states that Santos asked Curde several times why she did not move in with her co-worker Frank Calderone. Xytel argues that this statement is inconsistent with Curde's deposition testimony, in which she stated that Santos made this remark "one time." Trans. at 152. However, the deposition statement referred to by Xytel was just one sentence in a two-paragraph answer. Curde was never asked how many times Santos made such a statement, and only a few sentences later in the deposition she reaffirmed her claim that Santos constantly harassed her. Id. Reading the deposition testimony in context, we cannot conclude that Curde's affidavit contradicts her prior statement.

Finally, Xytel challenges Curde's statement in paragraph 19 that Vinod Patel failed to take any action after she complained of Santos's harassment. Defendant argues that Curde directly contradicted this statement in her deposition, in which she claimed that Mr. Pate spoke with Santos about his physical harassment of Curde and made him stop. However, it is clear from Curde's response to the motion to strike that paragraph 19 refers only to alleged inaction by Mr. Patel after the December 1992 touching incidents were resolved. As there is no apparent contradiction between the plaintiff's affidavit and her deposition testimony on this matter, we deny Xytel's motion to strike.

Defendant first argues that Curde has failed to introduce sufficient evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could conclude that her work environment was hostile enough to violate Title VII. To prevail on her hostile work environment claim, Curde must demonstrate that Santos's conduct was "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [her] employment and create a hostile work environment." Koelsch v. Beltone Elecs. Corp., 46 F.3d 705, 708 (7th Cir. 1995) (quoting Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 91 L. Ed. 2d 49, 106 S. Ct. 2399 (1986)). In determining whether an environment is sufficiently "hostile" or "abusive" to implicate Title VII, we examine:

the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee's work performance.

Xytel claims that, at best, Curde can demonstrate that Santos touched her in a sexually offensive manner during a two-week period in December 1992, and that for the following fourteen months she was subject to sporadic, non-sexual conduct of an annoying nature. According to Xytel, only conduct of a sexual nature can provide the basis for a Title VII hostile environment claim, and thus the plaintiff cannot prevail by showing only two weeks of such conduct over a fifteen month period. However, Defendant's major premise--that only conduct of a sexual nature can implicate Title VII--is incorrect. Rather, so long as the plaintiff's "working conditions have been discriminatorily altered" because of her gender, Title VII is implicated. See Harris, 114 S. Ct. at 372 (Scalia, J., concurring); Carr v. Allison Gas Turbine Div., General Motors Corp., 32 F.3d 1007, 1009 (7th Cir. 1994) (articulating Title VII inquiry as "whether the plaintiff was, because of her sex, subjected to such hostile, intimidating, or degrading behavior, verbal or nonverbal, as to affect adversely the conditions under which she worked"). To be sure, at least two cases from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals state that a hostile environment claim must include an allegation that the harassment came "in the form of sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Rennie v. Dalton, 3 F.3d 1100, 1107 (7th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1111, 127 L. Ed. 2d 375, 114 S. Ct. 1054 (1994); Swanson v. Elmhurst Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 882 F.2d 1235, 1238 (7th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1036, 107 L. Ed. 2d 774, 110 S. Ct. 758 (1990). However, neither of these cases directly addressed the question of whether harassing conduct of a non-sexual nature is actionable under Title VII. We believe the most recent statements by the Seventh Circuit dispel the notion that hostile environment claims are limited solely to situations involving conduct of a sexual nature; rather, actionable harassment "encompasses all forms of conduct that unreasonably interfere with an individual's work performance or create[] an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 42 F.3d at 443 (citing Meritor, 477 U.S. at 64) (emphasis added); see Carr, 32 F.3d at 1009.
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Thus, the fact that Curde complains of only a limited amount of sexually related conduct by Santos is not dispositive. So long as she puts forth sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that she endured a hostile work environment because of her gender, she can withstand summary judgment. Cf. Baskerville v. Culligan Int'l Co., 50 F.3d 428, 431 (7th Cir. 1995) (concluding no reasonable jury could find that supervisor's remarks created hostile work environment). This she has done. Curde claims that after the touching incidents of December 1992, Santos regularly obstructed her work by taking her computer discs and drawings, and withholding information about projects they were working on together. In addition, through innuendo Santos accused Curde of having sex with other employees during her lunch break, and inquired as to why she did not move in with another co-worker. Santos is also accused of making derogatory remarks about women, and on one occasion directing abusive, threatening language at Curde.
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While the frequency of Santos's verbal attacks on Curde is unclear, the plaintiff maintains that he regularly treated her in this manner from December 1992 to March 1994. Thus, we are not faced with a case involving relatively infrequent remarks from a rude or boorish co-worker, e.g., Baskerville, 50 F.3d at 430; rather, the plaintiff complains of relatively serious acts of harassment over a prolonged period of time. Finally, given the extended period of time over which the harassment is alleged to have occurred and the regular contact between Santos and Curde, the fact that Curde cannot remember Santos's exact words or the timing of several of the alleged incidents is not fatal to her claim. See Dey v. Colt Const. & Dev. Co., 28 F.3d 1446, 1456-57 (7th Cir. 1994). Accordingly, we cannot say as a matter of law that Plaintiff has failed to produce sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that a hostile environment existed at Xytel.

Defendant next argues that summary judgment should be entered because the plaintiff has failed to show that Xytel was at fault in not remedying the alleged hostile environment. To hold an employer liable for the acts of a co-worker, a plaintiff must prove that the employer knew or should have known of the employees' acts and failed to take appropriate remedial action. R.R. Donnelley & Sons, 42 F.3d at 446; see also Meritor, 477 U.S. at 72 (employer liability under Title VII governed by general principles of agency law). Although Santos's physical touching of Curde ceased after Mr. Patel censured him in December 1992, Curde testified in her deposition that Santos continued to treat her discriminatorily because of her gender. Further, the plaintiff claims that she informed both Ms. Patel and Mr. Patel of these acts, and that they failed to take any action until after she approached Xytel's president with her complaints. Defendant has not shown that this evidence is insufficient to support a Title VII claim, and thus summary judgment cannot be granted.

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